Masters of the English Novel | Page 9

novelists have
well-nigh completed their work; even as Defoe published his
masterpiece, "Robinson Crusoe," at fifty-eight. But such forms as
drama and fiction are the very ones where ripe maturity, a long and
varied experience with the world and a trained hand in the technique of
the craft, go for their full value. A study of the chronology of
novel-making will show that more acknowledged masterpieces were
written after forty than before. Beside the eighteenth century examples
one places George Eliot, who wrote no fiction until she had nearly
reached the alleged dead-line of mental activity: Browning with his
greatest poem, "The Ring and the Book," published in his forty-eighth
year; Du Maurier turning to fiction at sixty, and De Morgan still later.
Fame came to Richardson then late in life, and never man enjoyed it
more. Ladies with literary leanings (and the kind is independent of
periods) used to drop into his place beyond Temple Bar--for he was a
bookseller as well as printer, and printed and sold his own wares--to
finger his volumes and have a chat about poor Pamela or the naughty
Lovelace or impeccable Grandison. For how, in sooth, could they keep
away or avoid talking shop when they were bursting with the books just

read?
And much, too, did Richardson enjoy the prosperity his stories, as well
as other ventures, brought him, so that he might move out
Hammersmith way where William Mortis and Cobden Sanderson have
lived in our day, and have a fine house wherein to receive those same
lady callers, who came in increasing flocks to his impromptu court
where sat the prim, cherub-faced, elderly little printer. It is all very
quaint, like a Watteau painting or a bit of Dresden china, as we look
back upon it through the time-mists of a century and a half.
In spite of its slow movement, the monotony of the letter form and the
terribly utilitarian nature of its morals, "Pamela" has the essentials of
interesting fiction; its heroine is placed in a plausible situation, she is
herself life-like and her struggles are narrated with a sympathetic
insight into the human heart--or better, the female heart. The gist of a
plot so simple can be stated in few words: Mr. B., the son of a lady who
has benefited Pamela Andrews, a serving maid, tries to conquer her
virtue while she resists all his attempts--including an abduction,
Richardson's favorite device--and as a reward of her chastity, he
condescends to marry her, to her very great gratitude and delight. The
English Novel started out with a flourish of trumpets as to its moral
purpose; latter-day criticism may take sides for or against the
novel-with-a-purpose, but that Richardson justified his fiction writing
upon moral grounds and upon those alone is shown in the descriptive
title-page of the tale, too prolix to be often recalled and a good sample
in its long-windedness of the past compared with the terse brevity of
the present in this matter: "Published in order to cultivate the principles
of virtue and religion in the mind of youth of both sexes"; the author of
"Sanford and Merton" has here his literary progenitor. The sub-title, "or
Virtue Rewarded," also indicates the homiletic nature of the book. And
since the one valid criticism against all didactic aims in story-telling is
that it is dull, Richardson, it will be appreciated, ran a mighty risk. But
this he was able to escape because of the genuine human interest of his
tales and the skill he displayed with psychologic analysis rather than
the march of events. The close-knit, organic development of the best of
our modern fiction is lacking; leisurely and lax seems the movement.

Modern editions of "Pamela" and "Clarissa Harlowe" are in the way of
vigorous cutting for purposes of condensation. Scott seems swift and
brief when set beside Richardson Yet the slow convolutions and
involutions serve to acquaint us intimately with the characters;
dwelling with them longer, we come to know them better.
It is a fault in the construction of the story that instead of making
Pamela's successful marriage the natural climax and close of the work,
the author effects it long before the novel is finished and then tries to
hold the interest by telling of the honeymoon trip in Italy, her cool
reception by her husband's family, involving various subterfuges and
difficulties, and the gradual moral reform she was able to bring about in
her spouse. It must be conceded to him that some capital scenes are the
result of this post-hymeneal treatment; that, to illustrate, where the
haughty sister of Pamela's husband calls on the woman she believes to
be her husband's mistress. Yet there is an effect of anti-climax; the
main excitement--getting Pamela honestly wedded--is over. But we
must not forget the moral